Just as blue jeans, formerly exclusive to manual laborers, have morphed into the $200 designer jeans of the wealthy, the rich have again taken a cue from the lower classes and made it chic. Originating on New York City’s Upper East Side, and having spread to posh suburbs of Connecticut and Massachusetts, unabashed baby-making has become the newest thing among the affluent.

 

With headlines lamenting the increasingly high cost of college tuition, weddings, and gasoline, a blithely expanding family is just another sign that money is no object for wealthy, constantly expectant couples.

 

In an interview with National Public Radio, demographer Peter Francese calls having 3 or more kids “the ultimate luxury today,” and acknowledges that this trend is an “unprecedented jump completely counter to 100 years of history,” as it used to be the poor and uneducated who had big broods while the rich only had one or two very spoiled kids. The trend has changed now, with the number of high-income families having 3 or more children having shot up 30 percent in the last 10 years.

 

When I first observed this trend firsthand, as a teacher of Pre-K at an expensive private school, I assumed the collective swelling of gym trainer-flattened bellies was due to ticking biological clocks, love of family, and, naturally, secure finances. Not once did the phrase “competitive birthing” come to mind, and if someone had mentioned it, I would have dismissed it as cynicism.

 

I read recent blog headlines that I considered snarky and judgmental: “Are Babies the New Birkin Bag?” “Trophy Babies,” and “Status Kids for the Rich.”  Isn’t the power of parental love universal? Don’t the rich love their children as much as anyone else? And if they have the money to expand that love, why not use it? I shook my head at the catty remarks implying that grown women were succumbing to the same peer pressure that had plagued them in high school.

 

Until I heard it straight out of the breeding mare’s mouth.  

 

The NPR report interviewed moms who practice competitive birthing for their take on the trend. Not once did a mother mention her love of children or family as motivation for multiplying. Here are some examples taken from the story (“In Some Circles, Four Kids Is the New Standard,” by Tovia Smith, August 5, 2007).

 

One mother of four revealed that after having 2 children she decided she was through having kids, but then moved to upscale Darien, CT, and envied larger families. She said that seeing “a baby on one hip and a toddler,” left her “feeling short,” so she had a third, overcome by what she called “baby lust.”

 

But she wasn’t done yet. Cheerfully, she admitted, “I was bike riding at 6am with a friend, and she said 'I'm pregnant with #4!' and I was like, 'I'm so jealous of you,' and sure enough within the month, we're biking again, and I'm like, 'Guess what, I'm pregnant with #4 too.'”

 

Wow, how does a pregnant mother of three have the energy and time to bike ride at 6AM?

 

According to the director of an exclusive nursery school which caters to this demographic, these moneyed moms of many are “all dressed and looking fabulous ... and they still go to the gym, still have time to do whatever they need to do."  

 

And how do they manage that?

 

Smith explains that they are “hiring consultants to do the toilet training, to teach them to ride the two-wheelers, to teach them to tie their shoes, it's like the kid gets head lice, and the nit-picker comes and picks the head lice out! Is it ok? I don't know...” 

 

One mom describes the driving force behind the megarich megamom, sadly omitting any mention of love or maternal instinct. “I think it's because we're compelled to be successful and to be achievers. If you're an Ivy League graduate, who's always balanced all of the things in your life, and done it well, you don't decide to be a mom and have one kid. You're going to do it in a big way, full stop, 3 or 4 kids.”

 

A mom interviewed for the piece described the preening manner in which wealthy women announce their pregnancies, and the awe-filled reaction it evokes.  Those lucky ladies who “happily rub” their bellies, announcing that they are having their “fourth” is a sign that she and her husband “have serious, serious money,” and contributes to the notion that making multiple babies has become a "status symbol in a weird way.”

 

At the end of the story, our bike-riding mother of four leaves her crying baby with the babysitter to take one child, her 4-year-old, to the playground. As the baby wails during the goodbyes, the mother explains that she doesn’t take her to the playground because the baby “gets upset.”

 

Um, yeah, babies just hate playgrounds.